Avantasia, Playstation Theater, New York City, New York, USA, April 15, 2016

They said it would never happen, but apparently hell must have frozen over this spring, because the USA finally got to see Avantasia play on its shores! For those of you unfamiliar with this group, Avantasia started as a musical side project of Tobias Sammet (Edguy) back in 1999. It was designed to be a metal opera “supergroup” with lots of talented and well known guest vocalists and musicians. As it sometimes goes with “side projects”, Avantasia became extremely popular with music fans around the world and one album turned into another, touring began in earnest, and now… 17 years later… the once “side project” has become a major force in the music world. They have released seven full length studio albums to date… the most recent of which was “Ghostlights”, which was released earlier this year. They have toured countries throughout the world, with the USA being a major exception. They not only tour as a band, but consistently bring some of the phenomenal guest musicians that have performed on their albums along for the ride. When the Ghostlights tour was announced, fans in the US were overjoyed to see that the world tour included US dates…. But only two (one in Los Angeles and one in New York City).

I wasn’t a huge follower of Avantasia before this tour, but I was aware of them and their reputation for delivering phenomenal shows preceded them. There was no way of knowing if, and when I’d get the opportunity to see them again, so there was no way I was going to let this opportunity pass me by. I immediately made plans to catch the New York show. The show was at the Playstation Theater in New York City’s famous Times Square. Fans from all over the country had gathered in the Big Apple for this momentous event and the lines started outside the venue in the early morning hours. The theater itself is a large club style venue. I found it impressively clean and very well laid out. The floor area itself consisted of two tiers with two mini third tiers to either side of the soundboard. There were arena style seats toward the back of the venue. The entire layout provided a great view of the stage from pretty much everywhere. It was definitely one of the nicest club style venues I’ve seen.

Due to their long set, Avantasia was not touring with any opening bands and the show began about 10 minutes late at 8:10 pm. They hit the stage with “Mystery of a Blood Red Rose”, and what followed it was 3 hours and 20 minutes of: “Are you @*^#ing kidding me?!?!!”. There is just no other was to say it… this was, musically, one of the most phenomenal live shows, I have ever seen. And this is coming from someone who was not a big follower of the band before the show… and I hardly knew any of the songs. But what I witnessed this night completely blew me away. The sheer musical and vocal talent coming off the stage was just amazing. The stage set up itself was pretty basic, with a Ghostlights backdrop and an elevation to the rear of the stage for the drums, keys, and backup vocalists. The lighting was quite phenomenal. But this group put all the effort where it belonged… into the delivery of the music. There were 21 songs in the main set and two encores (and Avantasia songs tend to be on the long side). I’m not going to list them all here, because the list is just too long, but it was a great mix that spanned their entire career.

The main band consisted of Tobias on vocals, Felix Bohnke (drums), Sascha Paeth (guitar), Michael “Miro” Rodenberg (keyboards), Oliver Hartmann (guitars, lead and backup vocals), and Andre Neygenfind (bass). Backup vocals (and some lead vocals) were provided by Amanda Somerville and Herbie Langhans. Guest vocalists brought along for the tour included, Jorn Lande, Michael Kiske (ex Helloween), Eric Martin (Mr. Big), Ronnie Atkins (Pretty Maids). Bob Catley (Magnum), a frequent guest vocalist with Avantasia, was notably absent during the shows in the Americas due to commitments with his own band.

Some of the big highlights for me in the main set were the songs “Scarecrow” (Tobias and Jorn on vocals), “The Wicked Symphony” (Jorn, Oliver, Eric, Amanda, and Herbie on vocals), “Farewell” (Tobias, Amanda, and Michael on vocals) and the final song of the main set “The Story Ain’t Over” (Tobias on vocals). The first encore was “Lost in Space” followed by a medley of “Sign of the Cross/The Seven Angels” with pretty much everyone on lead vocals. Eight lead vocalists performing together… where else are you going to experience that? I was just completely stunned. Everything about this show was over the top, 8 talented vocalists, phenomenal songs, fantastic guitar solos, and an insane audience. Tobias is an excellent front man, not just in his vocals and stage antics; but he keeps the audience fully engaged between the songs with interjections of quite entertaining humor.

I left the venue still not able to fully take in the fantastic musical event that I had just experienced! It was definitely one of the best… if not the best… show I’ve ever seen. I came to the show with only a casual awareness of this band…. I left the show an enormous fan. I’ll definitely see them again… even if I have to cross the Atlantic to do it! What a night!